Chaos god, p.1
Chaos God, page 1
Chapter 1
I smirked to myself as I glanced at the bright red numbers of the digital countdown clock. It indicated how much time these kids had left to solve their way out of my dungeon escape room, and they were rapidly running out of minutes.
None of them had come close to any of the possible paths to freedom.
“This is the coolest freaking thing ever,” the blonde girl squealed so loudly that her voice crackled through my security cameras as she bounced on the balls of her feet.
“I know, right?” The black-haired girl propped a hand on her narrow hip.
“Come on, let’s find the next clue!” one of the boys said with excitement, and the four teens moved eagerly to work together.
“Good luck,” I snorted to myself.
The group looked like a pair of guys who’d brought their girlfriends out for an exciting double-date, and it sounded like they were having a great time.
I leaned back in my chair as I watched the four teenagers debate about the riddles and puzzles of my five-star reviewed escape room, and I started placing bets with myself about whether they’d manage to make it out in time.
It was no easy feat to manage a five-star review on Yelp, no matter what business you ran, but local escape rooms seemed to teeter right around three stars. I guessed there were always just enough complainers in the area to bring down even the best businesses. I couldn’t say I was surprised, though. Tricks, pranks, and puzzles had always been my forte, and I’d thrown all my best efforts into this place when I’d finally saved up enough funds to open it last year.
I’d managed to talk my way into the best location in the city, too. The real estate agent hadn’t wanted to show me this space, she’d been convinced it was out of my price range, but I’d talked her into it. The space had been above my budget by a fair amount, but there was no way I’d let that stop me.
After a week and a half of brilliance, I’d manipulated the real estate agent into getting me a meeting with the landlord. He was some rich dude from an old Boston family, and he gave zero fucks about what kind of businesses went into each of his buildings, he just wanted his money’s worth. I’d planned carefully, and after an offer of a five percent stake in my business, I’d weaseled my way into the space for a fraction of the initial price.
“Oh! I found a key!” the black-haired girl cheered as she proudly waved it in the air.
“Awesome, babe,” the taller of the boys said, and he laid a slobbery-looking kiss on the girl’s lips.
“Ugh,” I groaned, and I felt a stab of gratitude that my teen years were well behind me. The richest man on the planet couldn’t pay me to go back to high school.
I sipped my water and continued to watch the teens try to figure out whether the key was a plant to throw them off or if it really was the next clue. Either way, I didn’t think they’d be able to get out in time.
Roughly fifty percent of the groups that had come through over the last year had still been entirely stuck in my dungeon when the buzzer went off. I often found that the people who’d been unable to escape would come back every weekend until they finally made it out. The challenge was hard enough and fun enough that it didn’t frustrate them to the point of giving up. Instead, they were motivated to beat it.
Despite that, I’d been considering redoing a few of the puzzles to make them a bit easier for the average group of excitement-seekers, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. People seemed to love the challenge, and I was just so damn proud of this business.
I’d worked almost non-stop since I was sixteen in order to make a better life for myself. I’d started at McDonald’s and slowly worked my way up to working front door security at a strip club in the grimier parts of Boston. That had been a hell of a job for an almost nineteen year old, but I’d always been smooth with my words, and even though I didn’t look very muscular, I always knew the right place to hit someone or the correct way to twist their limbs so I could easily escort them out. Then I started dabbling in prize fighting gigs once I realized I could catch a lot of bastards off-guard with a little practice and prowess, and I’d ended up doing well enough at both jobs to save a bit of money and start my business.
I turned my attention back to the double-date playing out on my security cameras in front of me. I was impressed to see that the blonde girl was investigating the hardest of all three possible exit paths that would open the old-timey jail door and let them out.
“What did you find?” The shorter boy walked up behind the blonde girl and peered over her shoulder.
“I’m not sure…” the pretty teen murmured, and she fiddled with the wooden puzzle box in her hands.
I leaned close to the screen and watched her hands move the pieces around. There were three ways to escape the room, and almost no one solved, or even tried to solve, the wooden puzzle box option. Most of my customers assumed it was for decorative purposes only and ignored it. Sometimes, they tried to solve it and either ran out of time, or someone else in their group would find one of the slightly easier ways out.
“Come on,” I breathed as the blonde toyed with the puzzle, and a slight grin quirked at the corner of my mouth. “You can do it…”
“I got it!” the other girl cried out, and she held up a big iron key from behind a series of crates on the other side of the room.
“Awesome!” Her tall boyfriend jogged over to her and kissed her again. “We’re almost out of time, let’s open this door!”
“Come on, Jenny,” the black-haired girl urged her friend.
“Coming.” The blonde girl put the wooden puzzle box back down and walked over to join her friends.
“Dang,” I chuckled to myself. “That’s too bad. She was close to figuring it out.”
A while back, I’d discovered how difficult the wooden puzzle box was for most people, and I decided that I’d give a ten percent off coupon to anyone who could escape through its mysteries. Oh well, I suppose it was their loss.
The four teens opened the jail-cell door just as the last seconds of their hour ticked down. Then they stumbled out into the front room, and they were laughing and congratulating themselves on their success.
“That was fucking outrageous!” The taller boy draped his arm over the black-haired girl’s shoulders.
“It really was,” his girlfriend giggled.
“I’ve never done anything like it before,” the blonde girl laughed, and a soft blush spread across her cheeks as the shorter boy laced his fingers through hers.
I got the impression that the black-haired girl and the tall boy were an established couple, and this was a first date for the other two teenagers. They were cute together, and he seemed nice enough. I was glad that my business made for such an enjoyable date for the pair. If they managed to overcome all the hurdles of high school romance and make it long-term, they’d surely reminisce about this night and the guy that provided the venue for their first date. The thought made me smile despite myself.
“Well done, guys,” I said to the group after they closed the door behind them. “So, what did you think?”
“This really is the absolute best escape room in Boston,” the black-haired girl exclaimed, and she emphasized the word “best” with a flip of her long hair. “I’ve tried them all, and yours is by far the most fun.”
“And the most difficult,” the tall boy added with a grin.
“Well, I’m glad you guys had a good time.” I smiled at them casually, but on the inside, I was feeling quite smug. It always felt good to get confirmation on the quality of my trickery, even from a bunch of sixteen year old kids on a Friday night. “There are two other ways to escape the room, so make sure you come back to try again.”
“Really?” the blonde girl gasped, and her brown eyes lit up with excitement as she turned to her date. “I bet that wooden puzzle box is another way out!”
“Is it?” the shorter boy asked me.
“You’ll just have to come back and try it again,” I chuckled.
“Hell yes,” the tall boy confirmed. “We are so coming back here, there’s so much going on, I’m sure we missed a bunch of cool things in there.”
“Come on,” the black-haired girl said as they moved toward the front door. “I’m completely starving. Let’s go to dinner.”
“Where should we go?” the blonde girl asked the group.
“I don’t know.” The tall boy stopped and turned back to me. “Got any suggestions for good places to eat?”
“Something with gluten-free options?” the black-haired girl added.
“Yeah.” I nodded and pointed diagonally up the street from my front door. “There’s a Greek place that way that has amazing food, really good burgers, the falafel is fantastic, and they have gluten-free options, too.”
“Awesome,” The black-haired girl smirked and walked out the door, and she practically dragged her boyfriend behind her.
“Thanks again!” the tall boy called over his shoulder.
The other two teens followed after their friends, and the bell at the door jingled merrily as they left.
“Don’t forget to tell your friends how much fun you had at Carmichael’s Crypt!” I called after them.
The blonde girl turned over her shoulder to smile and wave at me, and then they were gone.
I flipped the switches that unlocked all the doors and levers of the escape room, and then I walked through the door to start resetting all the puzzles for the next group.
The space was pretty large for an escape room, and it was separated into two sections. The first room was sty led like a dusty old library in a mansion, with stacks of books carefully placed on every available surface. I’d almost cleared out an entire thrift store of their books to fill the bookcases along three of the walls. Several of them had been carved out to create hidden pockets where I’d stashed skeleton keys, and a few of the books activated levers that would trigger fun jump-scares for the customers. Some of them activated spooky haunted mansion screams and rumbles, and others made items in the room move. There were old armchairs on one side, and a beaten-up antique table between them. A fake candelabra sat on the table, and matching wall sconces were all around the room. There were creepy old portraits of snooty-looking aristocrats on the badly wallpapered walls, and I’d worked for two days to get the musty smell just right.
The room was a complete puzzle of its own, but it was also a misdirect.
Once my customers managed to figure out the puzzles in the library, they found themselves entrapped in the second room that was done up in a full medieval dungeon theme. I’d found a pretty decent deal on the metal bars that lined the walls, and I’d even managed to talk the guy down to a dirt-cheap price for them. Party store cobwebs lined the corners and added to the spooky atmosphere, and I’d intentionally neglected to dust either room since the beginning. I’d allowed all the sawdust from constructing the rooms to collect on every surface, and the lights were dimmed with more cobwebs and thin layers of black gauze.
The whole place was probably a fire marshal’s worst nightmare, but I’d cleverly convinced the guy that it was just within the guidelines that the city laid out. Loopholes were one of my favorite tricks, and I would die before I stopped taking advantage of them.
I’d reset the room so many times at this point that it only took me a few minutes, and I did most of it on autopilot. The teens had been a pretty respectful group, but I’d had so many issues with customers that would come in and leave candy wrappers and other trash around the space that I finally made a rule about no food or drinks in the rooms.
I had some actual antique pieces of furniture in here, and I wasn’t chill about random strangers coming in and fucking them up, even if they were paying me a decent amount to get in. Thankfully, my rule had cut down on a lot of that mess, and people had been incredibly understanding about it. It had even led to some nice reviews on Yelp about how clean the place was.
I set the wooden puzzle box back to its starting position and laid it carefully on the shelf. Then I returned back to the front to await my next reservation, and I sat behind my counter while I surveyed my domain.
The front of the place wasn’t all that big. There was just enough space for my huge counter that stored all the switches and levers that controlled the puzzles and traps and the security monitors.
I’d hung the best and weirdest thrift store paintings in the front here, my favorite being a painting of a huge palace made of crystal columns. The sunset in the distance cast bright orange and red light through the crystal, and a pleasant river flowed out from behind the castle. The owner of the thrift store had told me the painting was based on some old Viking legend, but I hadn’t paid much attention. There was just something about the art that spoke to me, and I knew I had to have it. I’d hung it behind the counter, so I didn’t get to look at it all that often, but it filled the space perfectly.
I looked at the four monitors of my security cameras, and I flipped all the switches to their active positions. Then I picked up my steak sub from below the counter, and I bit into my dinner as I settled in to wait for the next group.
Several minutes later, a movement of shadow in what should have been my empty escape room caught my eye, and I turned to look at the first security camera. I stared hard for a moment, but nothing moved, and I shook my head. I figured it must have been a trick of the light, and I shrugged to myself.
I finished the last bites of my delicious steak sandwich, and I glanced up at the clock to see that it was only a few minutes until the next group’s reservation. Most often people would show up several minutes early because they were so excited, but this group seemed to be an on-time kind of set.
I leaned back in my chair to wait the obligatory ten minutes after their reservation before closing up. This was my last group of the night, and I had a strict policy about tardiness. I started the clock at the time of their reservation, whether they’d arrived yet or not. If the group showed up within ten minutes of their reservation time I’d let them in with the clock already started, but if they weren’t there by ten minutes after, they forfeited their slot. It looked like this group wasn’t going to show, and I would be able to close down early tonight and head home for a nice cold beer and a bit of gaming before bed.
A few minutes later, the group’s clock was already ticking down, and another movement on the next camera caught my attention. As I leaned closer to the screen, my hair fell over my forehead, and I raked the unruly waves back with my fingers as I studied the monitor.
Then a dark shadowy figure lurched at the edge of the screen.
“Fucking kids,” I grumbled under my breath.
It looked like some bratty teenager, or worse, a twenty-something asshat was trying to figure out the puzzles to cheat the room. He was probably trying to impress his girlfriend with his unparalleled intellect and thought that with some advanced poking about he’d get the upper-hand on my puzzles. At least, that was my best-case scenario, but the worst-case was some piece of shit crack-head trying to rob me.
I took one last peek back at the monitor and saw that the figure had a large head and what looked like horns coming out of either side. I rolled my eyes at the jackass in his crappy Halloween costume. Then I tossed the trash from my dinner into the garbage and picked up the crowbar I kept under the counter. I sighed with exasperation as I flipped the switch to open the exit door, and then I walked into the dungeon-themed room.
“Hey,” I said with a firm voice that made it clear I was in no mood for this guy’s shit. “You can’t be in here until you pay.”
There was no response from the dark figure, but a rasping growl reached me from across the room. I gripped my crowbar a little tighter, and I took a step further into the dimly-lit space. The shadowy figure was hunched forward, and his broad shoulders heaved with his labored breathing. He seemed to be wearing a heavy hoodie in addition to the horrible Halloween mask, and I wondered even more about his sanity. It was the beginning of June and easily seventy degrees outside tonight, definitely not hoodie weather. Between the twisted horns on his full-head mask was a thick layer of coarse hair, and I couldn’t see the guy’s eyes through the ugly mask.
What the fuck was wrong with people these days?
Then the guy came at me so hard and fast that he would have knocked the air right out of my lungs if I hadn’t blocked him across the chest with my crowbar. He pushed toward me again, and I held him back with the crowbar while the force of his strength stunned me a bit. Now I knew this wasn’t some teen trying to preemptively solve the puzzles, so I shifted gears and prepared for a fight with a desperate drug addict on a bad trip.
“Dude, chill out,” I said as calmly as I could manage through gritted teeth. “It looks like you need some help, can I call somebody for you?”
The guy just growled at me, and his breath was entirely rancid as it leaked out from the mask’s mouth hole to my nose. The face of the mask looked to be of pretty decent quality, and I wondered how some drug addict had managed to get a hold of such an impressive piece of costuming. He was finally close enough that I could see his pupils were blown so wide that I couldn’t see any white around his eyes. I wondered if he’d possibly been injured, and the thought sent a shiver down my spine. It smelled like he’d been living on the streets for a while without so much as a toothbrush, and I expected he probably didn’t have any teeth left.
I opened my lips to breathe through my mouth, and I tried again.
“I can help you find a shelter,” I growled as I shoved him away from me with the crowbar. “You know, somewhere you can rest for a while, get a shower and a hot meal.”
The dim lights of the room and shitty Halloween costume kept the guy’s face hidden from me, but he was at least as tall as me. Which was impressive considering my fairly substantial height of six-feet-four-inches, and normally I towered over other people.
